Pulling Her Weight

Bill and Leia have kind of a love/hate relationship.  On the one hand, he likes cats, and Leia is a cat, and so he likes her.  He knows she makes me happy, and he respects her for that. 

However, he has no tolerance for her excessive vomiting.  Not that anybody likes cat vomit on the carpet, but I think I do a better job than Bill of accepting that the vomit is just something we have to put up with in order to experience the awesomeness that is Leia. 

Also a few months ago, Leia got spooked in the middle of the night and ran across Bill's face, causing a dramatic-looking scratch under his eye. 

So, their relationship is sometimes strained. 

But all of the sudden Bill and Leia are totally BFFs, due to a recent occurrence stemming from what I'll call The Fruit Roll-Up Incident. 

See, this past weekend I bought a 40-pack of Fruit Roll-Ups using a coupon at Costco.  (I don't know why I mentioned the coupon, except that couponing is hotter than ever right now!) 

It turned out that Fruit Roll-Ups brought out Nathan's criminal side.  He wanted Fruit Roll-Ups so badly that he would lie and steal just to get them. 

So as to put a stop to this illicit activity, I put the big box of Fruit Roll-Ups way up high, above the kitchen cabinets.  Note that I have never, ever put food up there before. 

The next day, I went to get out two Fruit Roll-Ups, and one of them had a bunch of teeth marks and bites taken through the packaging. 

"Nathan, did you chew through the Fruit Roll-Up?" I asked.

"Umm, no, I don't think I did.  Maybe.  No, probably not.  I don't think so." 

(Note to all criminal types: Don't use a 4-year-old as your alibi.) 

It seemed unlikely that Nathan would have chewed through the packaging, though, seeing as he is perfectly capable of opening a Fruit Roll-Up.  All signs pointed to a rodent. 

Still, I ate another intact Fruit Roll-Up out of the package.

I regretted this food choice the next day when Bill inspected the box and found several Fruit Roll-Ups with teeth marks in them. 

(This would be a really great place for photographic evidence, but I was too busy recoiling in horror to get out the camera.) 

Later that day, Bill bought some traps. 

He noticed that Leia was really interested in the area under the sink, so he put the trap there. 

An hour later, he had caught a mouse. 

Now he's totally thrilled with Leia.  He's acting like he and Leia are some sort of mouse-trapping team.  He even sent me an email from work today, asking me to pet Leia for him. 

He says the rule is one mouse equals one vomit forgiveness.